The Winter King (3 page)

His mission to France had been both dangerous and delicate, and, for both those reasons, absolutely secret. Only a handful of men knew where he had gone, and why. Those men would even now be anxiously waiting for him, desperate to know what news he brought, whether or not his mission had been a success.

They will just have to wait another day
, the man thought sourly. He turned over on the hard, mean cot, trying to get comfortable. His stomach ached, and the throbbing inside his head did not abate even when he closed his eyes and tried to relax. He had spent too long eating bad food and, to cap it all, the violent swell in the Narrow Seas had turned his guts inside out. He had vomited almost all the way from northern France to the south of England, leaning over the rail of the small boat bobbing her way through the heavy seas and wishing, at times, that he could just die and bring the misery to an end. The inn at Hamhurst was no haven of comfort and warmth, but even such a filthy hole was better than nothing. And, if he hadn’t stopped when he did, he would not have been standing on the edge of that avid crowd of villagers when the old crone started her rant. He smiled grimly – a mere stretching of his thin lips. Perhaps some helpful deity was watching over him, keeping him from harm and ensuring that he’d been in exactly the right place at the right time …

All things considered, he decided, yawning so hugely that he heard his jaw crack, it was far better to risk a few flea bites than sleep in some ditch. Who knew what starving wretch, driven to desperate measures by King John’s rule, might have seen his chance to kill off one more poor traveller, grabbing what he could from the corpse to sell for whatever he could get?

And that, the man reflected as sleep finally took him, would actually have been quite ironic …

Half a day’s ride from Lilas’s village, another voice was speaking out against King John’s rule. The voice was that of a passionate, idealistic and naive young monk named Caleb, and he lived at Battle Abbey.

Bemused, innocent, and not a little deranged, Caleb believed fervently that King John’s rule and its attendant hardships were a punishment from God. In private, Caleb had been taking secret measures – fasting, self-flagellation – to try to appease the terrifying version of God that he had been taught to believe in, hoping thus to move the Almighty to have pity on the people of England.

Although it was hard to say how it came to happen, Caleb had heard whispers concerning the happenings in Hamhurst. One whisper in particular – the strange new name that Lilas, in her trance, had bestowed upon the king. Now Caleb, too, deep within the confines of his monastery, began to refer to John as the Winter King.

Caleb’s superiors, however, were not in the least happy at the young monk’s growing notoriety. Battle Abbey had recently paid the vast sum of fifteen hundred marks to the king, in order that he should confirm the abbey’s ancient privilege of being answerable directly and only to him, and not to the bishops who would otherwise have had control over the abbey and its life. It was not the moment for one of their congregation – even a young, innocent and slightly daft one – to upset the king by complaining that his rule was so terrible that it could only be a punishment from God.

The bishops were not at all pleased with the new arrangements at Battle. Not that it mattered very much; since the interdict had begun, English bishops had been steadily leaving the country, and their displeasure was thus largely irrelevant. The climate in England was not good for senior churchmen, for the uncompromising terms of the interdict were making people question if they really needed the church after all. Give or take the odd marriage service or funeral rites, they seemed to be managing quite nicely without it. The muttered grumbling was becoming gradually louder.
Why do we have to pay tithes and taxes to the church when it doesn’t lift a finger to help us in our time of need?
People were, moreover, unconcerned at seeing the king continue to extract all that he could from the church and the religious houses. King John, the rumours said, needed chests full of money for some campaign he was mounting against the Welsh.
Well, if he gets what he needs from the church
, men muttered,
he won’t have to tax the people so heavily
.

The insuppressible Caleb, who refused to be turned from his God-ordained path by threats or cajoling, was now saying that King John was not fit to rule. Perhaps this was another phrase that the young monk had overheard; it was, or so it was claimed, the view of the church’s most senior figures. The Pope, should he finally lose patience with this king upon whom both excommunication and the imposition of the interdict had had so little effect, might well conclude the same, and then he would formally depose John of England, and release his subjects from the duty of allegiance to him.

By some strange mechanism of fate, Caleb appeared to be saying just what the people of England wanted to hear. His fame spread, and men and women flocked to Battle hoping to hear him speak. They were disappointed, for, having experienced just what happened when the young monk was allowed out, his superiors now kept him firmly within the abbey walls. But in every tavern in the town, there was only one topic of conversation; so loudly and frequently were Caleb’s pronouncements repeated that few visitors came away unaware of exactly what the young monk had said.

These included the three nondescript merchants who, as the spell of fine weather finally ended and the cold November rains began, prepared to leave Battle and head back for where they had started from. They did not speak as they set off on the busy road from the coast to the capital. There was no need: they had what they’d come for. Now, urging on their mounts, their sole aim was to hurry back to the men who had sent them on their mission and give their report.

In the narrow, rectangular hall of a large and rambling old manor house, an elderly man sat by the huge fire that blazed in the hearth, stretching out his long legs to its warmth. The house had been well sited, sheltered as it was in a fold of the northern slopes of the High Weald. It was not affected by the insidious damp that crept up from the wide river valley to the north, and the higher land at its back kept off the worst of the prevailing south-westerly winds. But the old man had seen too many winters, and he hardly ever felt warm between October and April.

He sat in a costly oak chair, its arms, legs and back beautifully carved, a cushion stuffed with goose feathers on the seat to comfort his bony backside. Before him, on a large board balanced on two trestles, was a wide scatter of parchments, some still rolled and bound, some spread out and weighted at the four corners to hold them down.

So much information
, the old man thought.

He sat back in his chair, slowly turning the huge rock of citrine set in heavy gold that graced the middle finger of his right hand.

Events were falling out just as he would have dictated, had it been possible to do so. At long last, not one but two people had found the courage to stand up and speak aloud what so many others murmured in secret. Yes, one was a wild-eyed crone and the other a naive young monk, but that did not matter. They had spoken out; they had done the unimaginable. Added to that, there were all the portents and omens; it was as if nature itself was eager to underline the message.

The old man’s hard mouth twisted in a grimace of wry amusement. He did not believe there was any deep and worrying supernatural cause behind the two-headed, eight-legged deer, for he had long resided among living, breathing, breeding creatures, and had observed for himself what abominations sometimes slid from a dam’s womb when something had gone awry with her offspring. But he was a keenly intelligent man, and fortunately for him and his companions, most of the population were wonderfully gullible and highly susceptible to fantastic rumour.

He leaned forward again and, picking up a quill, dipped it in ink and began to draw on a scrap of vellum. Under his slim, skilled fingers, a shape gradually emerged: a two-headed axe enclosed by a maze. It was the symbol they had adopted, he and his companions. Once again, the old man smiled. His companions, even those closest to him, believed the axe was simply a weapon, and that the surrounding maze represented the secret, concealing web which they were weaving around themselves and their activities.

The old man could have enlightened them, only he didn’t choose to. It was not an axe but the labrys: butterfly symbol of transformation and rebirth. Inside his head, the old man regularly walked the twists and turns of the maze that enclosed it, for they would lead him to the ultimate insight.

Then, he had no doubt, he would know exactly how to complete the task that had now begun.

His drawing complete, he looked at it for a long time. Then he screwed up the piece of vellum and tossed it into the fire.

He sat back, relaxed, patient.

Soon, he knew, it would be time for action.

S
abin de Gifford, wife of the sheriff of Tonbridge, had no need of the widely repeated rumours of omens and portents to make her feel deeply uneasy. It was all very well for the wide-eyed townspeople with nothing more pressing to worry about to scare themselves with such tales; Sabin’s problems were far more acute and considerably more terrifying.

And it had all begun with the desire to
help
…

She had just spent a sleepless night and, deeply dispirited at the prospect of another one, came to the difficult decision that she had to
do
something. But what? Talk to Gervase? She shrank from that: her husband was a decent, if rather too ambitious man and, all things considered, her life with him was sufficiently happy for her not to regret the decision to accept his offer of marriage. That had been fifteen years and three children ago, and, in general, they had been good years. Gervase had not protested when she had insisted on carrying on with her work as apothecary and healer.
But then why should he
, demanded the Breton peasant blood that ran in her,
when my fine reputation adds to his prestige, and the money I earn adds to his wealth?

No, Sabin did not regret her choice of husband. But the matter that was so deeply affecting her was really not for discussion with Gervase.

The morning was advancing, and the November day was surprisingly mild. Gervase had gone out early, and the only one of the children still living at home, eight-year-old Alazaïs, was at her needlework lesson, in the house of the elderly widow who was patiently trying to teach her. For an hour or so, Sabin was alone. Perhaps, if she thought through her problem calmly and logically, a solution would present itself. With an anxious frown, she sat down at the hearthside and went back in her mind to the moment when she had first begun to suspect that something was badly wrong.

The urgent summons had come from Canon Mark, one of Tonbridge’s Augustinian Canons. He was Sabin’s favourite of the brothers, in fact; over the many years since she had made herself available to help the canons with patients whose care and treatment were beyond their considerable skill, Mark had always been her friend. The Augustinians had built their house too near the river, on a patch of damp, claggy ground that everyone with experience of Tonbridge, and the problems associated with the town’s lower-lying areas, usually avoided. Coughs and colds, sprains and broken bones, the canons’ infirmarian could deal with himself; for the endless variety of fevers, shivers, joint pains and pestilences which occurred all too frequently, the brothers usually turned to Sabin de Gifford and her apothecary’s art.

Sabin had realized something out of the ordinary had happened as soon as she saw Mark’s expression. He had come hurrying across the yard to where she stood on the steps up to her door, black cloak swept back to reveal the white surplice, his broad, honest face sweaty with exertion. His short, stocky frame was not really built for speed, and he had obviously been running.

‘What is the matter, Canon Mark?’ she asked, going down to meet him. ‘Please, come inside and catch your breath!’

He stopped, panting, and waved a hand. ‘No time, Mistress Gifford, thank you just the same.’ He paused to take a breath. ‘I need your help, if you please. Can you come with me straight away?’

‘Yes, of course,’ she replied. ‘I will fetch my satchel and my cloak.’ She hurried back inside, returning in moments. Opening her leather bag, quickly checking the contents, she said, ‘Can you think of any particular remedy we’ll be requiring?’

Canon Mark gave a sound between a snort and a laugh. ‘No remedies needed at all, Mistress. The patient is dead.’

She stopped in the middle of her inspection, eyes flying to meet his. ‘Then why do you need me so urgently?’

‘Because,’ Mark said heavily, ‘the dead man is – was – Lord Benedict de Vitré, of Medley Hall.’

‘Lord Benedict?’ She felt she understood. Everything. And with comprehension came the first sharp anxiety. Hurriedly buckling up her satchel and putting it back inside the house, she said, ‘It will take a few moments for my horse to be saddled, and then I shall come at once.’

Canon Mark must have left orders for the horses to be prepared while he ran to fetch Sabin, for by the time they reached the Augustinian house, a mare and a gelding stood saddled and bridled. Recognizing the handsome, well-built young canon holding the two sets of reins, Sabin called out a greeting to him.

‘Canon Stephen, good day to you!’ Then, taking in the significance of
two
horses, she added, ‘Are you coming with us to Medley Hall?’

‘I am, Mistress Gifford.’ Stephen’s mouth twitched in a grimace. ‘Lord Benedict recently came to me for … er, for advice of a personal nature, and Canon Mark felt I should attend the inspection of the body.’

‘You gave him advice?’ Already Sabin was wondering whether the two canons’ evident consternation was to do with guilt over some dreadful wrong diagnosis. If that were so, then …

As if Stephen read her thoughts, he said swiftly, ‘The advice amounted to nothing more than that he should eat and drink less and exercise more.’